Barnegat Bay Pollution and Solutions Blueprint

At the annual shore legislative hearing held by the Senate
and Assembly environment committees last week in Lavallete, legislators were
served a definitive, stark and harsh evaluation of ecological decline in
Barnegat Bay's waters.

The state's leading scientific researchers provided years of
hard evidence to what vacationers on the Bay this summer already know
first-hand: there is a continued onslaught of stinging jellyfish, "blobs" of
smelly seaweed along the shoreline and disappearing fish. The research clearly
identifies overdevelopment of Ocean County, and the resulting polluted
stormwater runoff pouring into the Bay as the source of the problems.

Despite its bad news, the research provides an opportunity
to respond in a targeted fashion – to change land use practices and pollution
control techniques in ways that are unique to the Bay's problems.

However, a side by side comparison of problems and proposed solutions
– whether in the Governor Chris Christies Barnegat Bay Plan, DEP initiatives or legislative proposals, or
the land use and environmental policies of Ocean County and local
municipalities – shows a significant disconnect between the fact that
overdevelopment and continued urbanization are the primary drivers of the Bay's
problems and the policy decisions by government ostensibly working on Barnegat
Bay restoration. Bottom line: Governor Chris Christie, the DEP and the
Legislature haven't dealt with overdevelopment. In fact, a series of builder
lobby backed legislative bills, gubernatorial vetoes and DEP regulatory
decisions and rule-making have substantially handicapped the existing tools
available to address the Bay's ills, and failed to advance new approaches
proven successful in other similarly impaired estuaries.

Many of the responses to the Bay's problems by the Christie
Administration and Ocean County elected officials are increasingly measuring up
as inadequate in addressing the real problems. They are undercut by other
regulatory and policy actions outside the "Governor's 10 point bay plan." In
fact, a recent, bizarre proposal to reclassify the Clean Water Act status of
the Bay as unimpaired had all the hallmarks of rewriting the rules to
perpetuate the status quo.

A response scaled to the seriousness of the issue and degree
of impairment facing the Bay has not been introduced anywhere. There are
increasing calls for federal intervention. The EPA clearly has the legal
ability to impose pollution limits – a desperately needed step for the Bay's
recovery. However, in the past, the American Littoral Society and other
environmental groups have had to sue to force EPA action on these obligations.

The Rutgers study is a blueprint for action: it identifies
the Bay's problems and their causes. It shows were the restoration work needs
to happen, and acknowledges it needs to focus on multiple problems. The
Governor, DEP Commissioner Bob Martin, the Ocean County Freeholders and the EPA
all need to embrace the science, and move forward. They need to put aside the overdevelopment
agenda, and put the Bay first.